


toz drabbles

by orphan_account



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-20 08:51:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3644169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(a place to dump toz drabbles.)</p>
<p>“If you could keep only one memory, what would it be?”</p>
<p>“Just one?”</p>
<p>“Just one.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. see u space sorey

“If you could keep only one memory, what would it be?”

“Just one?”

“Just one.”

“…remember that one time, when you forgot how to say pandemonium?”

“Sorey,” he says. Tears bow his eyelashes, crowd his throat until his voice is thicker than the clotting blood on his hands, beneath his nails. “Sorey. Honestly.”

“Okay, honestly.” It’s getting a little harder to breathe—his breath snags on his teeth, rattles in his chest like it’s empty, hollow.  _Not yet_ , he tells it.  _There is still something here_. “How long is a memory, anyway?”

“Well,” Mikleo starts, “They can be different lengths, probably.” He pulls Sorey closer over his lap and considers the dark clouds that roll above them. “From the earliest to latest point you can remember.”

“Then should I pick the longest?” He closes his eyes.

“Only if it’s your favorite.”

“Mm. My favorite…” There’s a long silence that drives itself like a wedge into Mikleo’s heart. He brushes cold fingers over Sorey’s colder face and wills it to stretch or pull to full life again. “I think… Mikleo, I’m too greedy for just one,” he says, and huffs a few wretched breaths that sound more like sorrow than laughter.

And the dam Mikleo’d built begins to sag at its center—he’s water, has always hurried to flow, and is powerless before the flood that roars closer with every fall of Sorey’s chest.  _What will I do if this is the last?_  chases another end over bitter end, sinister echoes in a chamber about to collapse beneath the soundless weight of a sunless sea.

_What will I do?_

He bends to the pressure, prays he will not break, knows he will, and presses his forehead to the center of his known universe. Sorey’s heartbeat grounds him there and he decides between one  _thump_  and the next that he will not leave.

“Mikleo?”

“…please-“ he stops before the wreck and curls his fingers in Sorey’s cape. The fabric bunches in his trembling grip and he hates it, this destiny that’s come to reap what it has sown.  _Please do not take him_ , he says instead to the dark in his mind, the aching black that smiles without a face and answers,  _all things must end_. “Not yet,” Mikleo murmurs into Sorey’s shirt. “There is still something  _here_ -“

_Thump_. “I’m gonna go with pandemonium, after all.”  _Thump_. “Hey, you know-“ He makes a small, uncertain sound that slides ice fangs into Mikleo’s bloodstream.

_Thump_.

 

He waits.

 

 

_Please do not take him._

 

 

 

_What will I do?_

 

 

“Sorey?” He is outside of himself, hovering away from the numbness that’s taken hold of his body. The seconds stretch into dozens into minutes and without much more than whisper of a rush, it begins to rain. He has presence of mind at least to keep Sorey dry but forgets himself; water creeps down his collar, warm and static and he is still  _waiting_ -

And the end comes with a silence so strong it breaks him into pieces like sheets of ice beneath heavy boots. It’s splintering and sharp and the world is a hundred thousand facets of calamity.

 

_Not yet_ -

 

 

_What will I do_ -

 

 

_There is nothing here_ -


	2. swallow me whole

He comes down from the mountain with his gold heart beating upon his sleeve.

You’re at his side when the sun lights that which you’ve longed to see. The air’s sweet and cold and you watch him watch this strange world of yours with anticipation heavy in your stomach.

Humans are loud, strange—Sorey melts into them like slow rain after long drought and you’re at his side when he puts it all on the line to be-

More than a passing shower.

He’s a storm, washes malevolent filth from city streets and city bones until all glistens. Lailah’s flames crown him a king; you dream him wreathed in flickering orange and red and you dream him in your arms, safe from-

Knives at his throat, poison in his wine-

Snarling shadows, hungry teeth harbingers of hungrier bellies-

 _Mikleo is different_ , he says. This insufferable boy, this glowing, burning boy who owns you—you would die for him, but he’ll never ask. _Close enough_ , you think, and trace the taut line of the bow’s string with the lightest passing of your fingertips.

 It’s easier to be one with him as the power lacing strength in his arms, easier to share a mind. Armatization leaves you with ghost limbs. The first night, you toss and turn in his head and at last give in hours before dawn’s pale.

 He’s warm and awake beneath the covers, laughs that soft way of his when you kick off your boots and tuck yourself against him. To be close—it’s all you’ve ever wanted, after all. He’s feathered edges and awkward held breaths and you run a hand through his hair when he falls asleep pressed against your chest.

 _Monster_ , they say, and you are by his side, after, when he throws a down-pillow too hard against the inn bed. You’ve never seen this sick green in his eyes before, have never tasted such bitterness. He’s a bottle of roiling thunder.

  _Sorey_ , you say, and Edna and Lailah leave. Your hands reach on their own, grip the fabric over his shoulders. _Never_ , you tell him, frustration like cotton in your throat. _Never a monster_ - 

They don’t deserve him, but he doesn’t know how to not love them. _You_ don’t know how to not love _him_ and when you notice a dimming of superb reflexes, a widening gap in superb defense, you bite your tongue and position yourself accordingly.

 _Sorry_ , he says, but you’re so cold you’ve forgotten yourself.

 _We don’t have to hold anything back_ -

 _Sorry_ , he says. _I’m sorry, Mikleo, I’m sorry_ -

 An attack he hadn’t seen coming, a blow you’d taken to-

 And Alisha is _fine_ , you remind him. _You’re_ fine. But here’s the buckling of Atlas’ knees. Here’s you, hands full of vanilla ice cream at some time past two in the morning. He accepts it, eats it too fast so that you can both laugh at the brain freeze that follows. So you can both ignore the sadness beating its fists at the gates of him. You slip an arm across his back; _you’re not doing this alone_ , you remind him, and Atlas straightens into an azure sky again.

 You’re by his side when he loses sight of you for the first time. You scream his name and stand between him and calamity but—there is so _much darkness_ , and it wants him, _it wants him_. His body hits dusty ground, falls into water you calm and gentle and convince to flow without trouble. Rose’s identity—a shock, but you are not surprised when given time to think.

 Time stretches and you cry, once. Just a slip of a tear that you wipe away quickly, without notice. He wakes to see you and you cross your arms, smile, keep your distance because-

 You’re afraid of the earnest persistence of these feelings, of being nothing more than weight added to his burden-

 The first time you kiss him, he covers his face and mutters something you can’t hear into his palms, into the fabric of the Shepherd’s glove. You’re terrified you’ve broken it all, ruined the balance you’ve known the past eighteen years of your life, but-

 In all things, Sorey is sunshine and clear water and warm earth. His optimistic strength bends even the most unwilling to heel. You think a heretic would eat from his hands, if given enough time to know him.

 He kisses like you’re—like he’s-

 Rose walks in and screams and kicks the door closed on her way out.

  _Whoops_ , he says, hand still fit to the edge of your jaw, thumb still at the flushed skin beneath your left eye. You avert your eyes, avoiding sunspots, but tilt your head right when he leans in to continue where you’d left off.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i continue to die


	3. swimswamswum

Spring’s lapsed into summer, turning a soft mountain underbelly of wildflowers and sweet green to the hot sun.

 

Izuchi turns them out into the warm morning with exasperated sighs and clicks of the tongue, fond smiles peppered naturally between, and Sorey turns his face up to the blue sky and its skidding clouds and says, determined, _let’s go to the pond_.

 

(“I wonder,” Zenrus says as he and Maisen sit at his doorstep, “If we should stop them.”

 

“I don’t think they’ll harm it,” Maisen answers. Sorey’s bent at his waist, pulling light-weft trousers over kid-round knees, kicking off his tiny boots. “Holy water cannot be tainted by children so…”

 

Mikleo hikes his tunic higher, jumps feet-first into the shallows. _Hey_ , Sorey says, loud enough to carry his petulance, _no fair, I was gonna go first_ \- But Mikleo laughs him off, dragging a foot up through the sparkling water until it arcs away and into Sorey’s open mouth.

 

“...pure,” he finishes, and smiles at the kind lines of Zenrus’ face.)


	4. ur a gay elf, mikleo

He’s asleep at the hill’s crown, houndstooth cap slipped easy over his eyes, bare pale feet stuffed into spring’s greenest grass. The season’s smallest lamb lies at his hip, round black eyes blinking back at Sorey as he finishes the climb. 

A stirring of earth and sky—the forest at Mikleo’s sleeping back sways in the gentlest wind, whispers its regards into Sorey’s fine-tuned ears. He smiles, squats an arm’s length from lamb and sleeping boy. From his bag he draws food wrapped in heavy brown paper that crinkles and scratches against the callouses on his palms.

“Hey,” he says, quiet to keep the dreaming at rest, and offers the back of his hand for the lamb to sniff. Her nose skates across his knuckles, warm breath skittering against the thin skin there, and Mikleo’s bent leg twitches and draws up to his chest. 

“Food?” he asks sleepily, mouth soft and upturned. Sorey can’t help but to stare—his hat still covers the top half of his face, hiding the lavender eyes and mean wit he knows so well. 

“Roast beef,” Sorey confirms, and Mikleo brushes his cap clean off his head. His hair’s pushed flat at the sides where the band had pressed, but his bangs still sweep dramatically and ridiculously to the left. 

“Ah,” Mikleo says, slight hands finding the warm loaf of rye in Sorey’s pack. His eyes glitter, glad and attentive. “So you _are_ useful.” 

“You only like me for my bread,” Sorey grumbles, but he’s smiling. There’s a smudge of flour on his neck, between two moles, and Mikleo licks his thumb to wipe it away.

The moment stretches, the forest breathes, the lamb settles down to sleep. A heavy bough of— _something_ —bows in Mikleo’s chest, stealing the depth of his breath. Sorey’s warm and close and he swallows his bite of the thick bread, leaning forward onto his right hand, fingers woven into a patch of rain lilies.

 It’s slow and comfortable; they’re used to this, have been since they were fifteen and Sorey’d told him, clear-faced, matter of fact, _you’re different_.

  _Well_ , Mikleo had said, pitchfork swinging close to Sorey’s ankles as he pitched hay for the night, _I’m certainly aware_.

 

 

( _A child found at the river’s edge, bright eyed, silver-haired—_ magic _._

Gifted _, Jiji told them, when Mikleo had first drawn water from the well without a bucket_. But a secret _-_ )

 

 

Sorey squinted up into the great barn’s rafters, into beams of golden light as they struck through a sea of dust motes. _No_ , he said, smiling like he’d solved one of his puzzles, confident and unafraid. So different from the tensed heart beating against his ribs, from the nerves drying his tongue. _You know what I mean_.

 Mikleo had turned, bent to check the ear of a dozing ewe.

  _Right?_

 

And now he’s nearly in Sorey’s lap in the furthest pasture, laughing when Sorey’s stomach growls. “Be _patient_ ,” he tells it, smiling crooked, arms tightening around Mikleo as he shakes his head.

 “I’m eating,” he says, but doesn’t relocate himself. Sorey empties the last of his burden—an empty tin cup filled soon with a twist of Mikleo’s wrist and a murmur of the forest. Mikleo drains it first—he’s been out in the sun all day, asleep.

 Their picnic ends with bread crumbs in the folds of Sorey’s shirt and ice dancing from Mikleo’s fingers— _practice,_ Jiji said, _control is everything_ -

 Sorey’s sprawled with his head resting on Mikleo’s thigh, curious gaze following the flicker of magic keenly. Mikleo’s lips quirk higher on one side than the other, and he decides he’s practiced enough for this trick, finally.

 He starts with cupped palms, so Sorey can’t see the shape of the ice until Mikleo chooses. The base spreads to life with spider-leg arms that curl clockwise, dipping here and there, steadily spiraling to a center.

 A rose bush clings to the back of the east barn, blooming pale pink midspring. He holds the memory of its flowers between his eyes and brain and pours just a slide of magic from his belly.

The product’s sufficient—proportionally correct, mathematically sound in curve and petal count—but.

 “Here,” he says at last, and drops the frozen flower onto Sorey’s chest. It’s so clear he can see the distorted and magnified image of a grain seed through its shape.

 “What-” Sorey breathes, fingers lightly touching its edges. Then: “ _Amazing_. I didn’t know you could do this! It’s so _complex_ -“

 “It’s nothing,” Mikleo dismisses, left hand over his mouth. “If I showed you everything I could do, it wouldn’t be any fun.” Which is—a lie. The flower had been the only secret he’d kept, and now Sorey knows everything. As usual.

 “I feel so bad,” Sorey tells him. “It’s going to melt.”

 “That’s fine,” Mikleo says, eyebrows furrowing. “I can make another, whenever you—I—want.”

 Sorey hums. “But still. It’s beautiful, Mikleo.” And he smiles, and his gaze flickers between the ephemeral rose and Mikleo’s face, and—that’s what he’d wanted to see. Kindhearted wonder, hunger for the unknown.

_Look_ , he tells the trees, and they do. _Look, we’re learning_.

One day, they’ll leave their sleepy foothill village to breach the woods’ feathered edge. _Soon_ , he promises, and the oaks and maples and evergreens listen.

Until then—Sorey drops the half-melted flower into their cup, presses his cold hands against Mikleo’s neck, laughs and rattles off more plans, questions, observations. Mikleo shuts him up the way he knows best, and the ice warms in the dappled sunshine, settles into a long-forgotten puddle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS JUST KINDA HAPPENED


	5. MMMMMMDEATH

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tainted au.  
> poem here: http://sormiku.tumblr.com/post/133735008085/q-how-do-you-know-youre-a-ghost-a-its-the

_[HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU’RE A GHOST?]_

 

They watch Rose disappear into the morning mist side by side.

The great boles of the forest rise from ancient roots, foundations long planted and hidden by dark earth, and Mikleo closes his eyes to the sound of wind through the leaves. He knows the moment Sorey loses sight of her by the feel of his body—a tightening and tensing of the arm Mikleo’s pressed against, the way he leans away from touch. 

Rose is the last to leave, in the end. Her tenacity refused an easy defeat, but here in the swirling, hungry taint of their reality lies an overwhelming truth: 

They are not enough.

 

 _[_ _IT’S THE SLIDING_ _]_

“Ready?” he asks, running a hand up Sorey’s forearm to grip him by the elbow. 

It’s hard to look too closely. Taint’s hissing in his bloodstream, curling like smoke in his skin, but he’s not _gone_ enough to meet dull green eyes with his own. Sorey knows this, has known since the first morning he woke blind in his right eye, and uses what little gentleness he has left to tell Mikleo _it’s fine_.

It’s not, but their fingers lace together well as every time before, and Mikleo’s grateful the end doesn’t come with loneliness draping itself like a shroud over their souls.

 

_[IS IT LIKE SLEEP?]_

 

“It’s snowing,” Mikleo tells him, and Sorey tilts his head back to cast sightless eyes over the white clouds too far above their earthly perching. They’ve returned to Elysia long enough to sleep together beneath blankets sewn _before_. 

The night passes with Mikleo’s nose cold against Sorey’s neck, a nameless cruelty opening its razor maw in his chest and breathing life to a fire that lights all fires. Sorey’s thumb brushes the same patterns onto the thin skin of Mikleo’s wrist, gaining pressure like panic when the waxing moon sits above a paling horizon and the first of his scales start to take shape.

But the fear Mikleo had known just hours before has left, and in its place now quivers a vast emptiness.

“Just once,” Sorey says, smiling. He shivers in the cold that drifts off Mikleo as fog and tucks the quilt of their childhood winters tighter about them both, as if this chill were so mundane.

_Just once, before we go._

“You don’t have to ask.” Mikleo leans up on his elbows, the mattress barely shifting beneath him, and lifts the bands from Sorey’s forehead to press a kiss to the lines of worry there. “It doesn’t have to be just once.” Even he hears the lead weight in his voice—he’s glad Sorey can’t see the yellow eclipsing the purple in his irises, now.

“Just once,” Sorey repeats, Shepherd’s glove soft against the roughened skin of Mikleo’s cheek. “I don’t think we have time for anything more.”

“You’re probably right.” He laughs and it’s not—his own voice, anymore.

 

 _[_ _LIKE SCYTHING_ _]_

“I’m sorry for all of this, Mikleo,” he says, and Mikleo sighs against his lips, whispers, _don’t be,_ after the last kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> haha


End file.
